Born of Conflict: Children of the Pacific War

Film screening and presentation by Jacqueline Leckie, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago, New Zealand
Between 1942 and 1945, over two million United States servicemen occupied the southern Pacific theatres. The influx of these men had an enormous social impact, including fathering thousands of children. In 2010 the University of Otago began research about these children, their mothers, or their biological fathers (‘Mothers’ Darlings: http://www.otago.ac.nz/usfathers/). This film is an outcome of that project and highlights the heartfelt and often painful stories of some of these children’s lives and those reunited with their fathers, long after the Pacific war. The narratives featured in the film focus on Cook Islands, American Sāmoa, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The film will be introduced by Jacqueline Leckie, one of the researchers who was responsible for research in Fiji.